Finished Spread: Overgrown

Today’s art journal spread came about in under 24 hours, which is quite a feat for me to accomplish in a space of 11″ x 19″! There are quite a few elements to this page that I’ve never created before, and are now happily added to my artistic arsenal! The color palette is one, but the use of a radiating ombré is really where I’ve taken notice. There are two places on this spread where this new technique has taken life, but the bottom right hand corner really commands my attention! In this same location, you may notice a faint pattern over top the oval shapes that decorate this ombré. Here, I have used a gloss black acrylic over matte black gesso—and I love the effect!

“Overgrown” Art Journal Spread

“Overgrown” Closeup of Bottom Right

Another place where I employed a new-to-me technique is the addition of a border. To keep with my style, this border is not only messy, but also full of details! Using a dip nib pen, I drew tiny bubbles along the edge of my spread with a Golden brand fluid acrylic. Afterwords, I sporadically filled in some of those bubbles with the ink that was used to paint my florals; I also returned to this border with some of the background color, a pastel green, to make a few of these bubbles contrast against the pink! I’ve never been happy with the borders that I’ve attempted to employ on my pages, but I might be giving this messy boarder a new part-time job!

“Overgrown” Closeup of Bottom Left Corner

I don’t know how it’s happened, but somehow I’m allowing florals to slip onto my journal pages. It’s a bit strange for me, but I’m not at all averse to this spread! The flowers shown here are made from loose strokes of a color mixed from white fluid acrylic paint and bright red India ink—and it was fun to play with this combination of mediums. That being said, if you’d also like to try out this mixture of wet mediums, be sure to give yourself plenty of drying time and use a technique to keep your pages from sticking together, because these florals are super glossy!